Phillies ICYMI Monday: 01/28/19

Much like last week, possibly the biggest Philadelphia Phillies news was not even about a current or future player. We have heard only rumors for another week on the #MacHarper front. We did here from one side of the lone Arbitration case facing the team, so I will touch on that. I will end with a shameless plug for all to check out another Internet 15 seconds of fame for this writer.

Roy Halladay Call To The Hall:

Fittingly on his Phillies battery mate Carlos Ruiz‘s birthday, it was announced that Roy Halladay (2010-2013) was elected to the Hall Of Fame. Since he was feted here last season with his induction onto the Phillies Wall Of Fame, his stats while he was in Philadelphia, as well as the love we have for him in this town, has been well documented on these pages. Our main Soccer man Jay Davenport posted this remembrance, and my baseball colleague Seamus Killen, noted the emotional night last season.

Per Roy’s wife Brandy Halladay, he will go in the hall without a team logo on his cap.

“Roy was incredibly proud of his accomplishments with both the Blue Jays and the Phillies. We spent many great years in Toronto, where he established his career and became a Cy Young-winning pitcher. In Philadelphia, he reached the postseason, threw two no-hitters and won a second Cy Young Award. As a family, and with the blessing of the Hall of Fame, we feel confident that Roy would have come to the same conclusion, had he known it to be an option. Both franchises, and their fans, meant so much to him.”

I will top off this topic with MLB Network‘s tweeted video of Roy’s best performance at Citizens Bank Park:

Arby Angst: Go The Distance?

Reporting from the 115th annual Philadelphia Sports Writers Association dinner on Monday night, where Aaron Nola was receiving the Professional Athlete of the Year award, Jim Salisbury of NBCSports.Com, said that Nola revealed that his salary arbitration hearing is scheduled for Valentine’s Day. He did not, at least publicly, show any animosity towards the way this was or was not proceeding, as he said:

“This is baseball, the business part of the game. No hard feelings between us. Whatever happens happens. We’re just going to go through it.”

As noted in my post of 1/14/19, the teams seem to be far apart, $4.5M by the club, while Nola asked for $6.75M. If it reaches a hearing, a 3 person panel can only pick one or the other. I still have hope that something gets done before then – possibly waiting like seemingly everybody else in baseball for at least one heel of a MacHarper cleet to hit the turf.

All Heels On Deck Baseball Lifer: 😊 Yours Truly 😊

I may or may not have mentioned in past posts one of my favorite baseball sites on the Interwebs, a Patreon based blog and twitter site called All Heels On Deck.

This Patreon side is partly a subscriber only site, starting at $1.00 for basic access for full content. This site is the brain child of intrepid baseball reporter Jessica Quiroli, who has covered the Phillies in the past, but most of her work has been in MILB and independent leagues for, The Durham Herald-Sun, Baseball Digest, Pinstripes Plus,The Trentonian, The Press of Atlantic City, The Worcester Telegram, and others. The idea behind HHOD is to give a voice to women, People of Color, LGBTQ, and other underexposed groups of writers, passionate about baseball and sports in general.

I first “met” Jessica on of all places, one of those testosterone fueled sports messaging boards called Sports-Boards.net, now defunct, sometime around 2006-07. The two of us quickly found a shared love of the Phillies, baseball in general, and many musical connections – especially the Grateful Dead. I fought many battles alongside her against men there who wrote her off as a phan, and as sportswriter more because she was a woman, than any other reason.

Though somehow in all those years we have never “literally” met, something I hope to do someday, I have been following and supporting her work as best I can ever since.

About The Author

brett5355

Though I was born a few blocks from what was to be the NY Worlds Fair/Shea Stadium/Forrest Hills Complex, my parents saved me from being a NY fan by moving to Elkins Park in 1955, when I was 6 months old. I have been living and dying w/ Philly sports teams ever since. Now over 60 , I bring an older, but hopefully not stodgy, spin to this blog. By day I am a mild mannered controller/IT guy for a family business, but by night you will either find me @ CBP at least 17 games a season, and most other nights yelling at my tv as if they can hear me. Though I attend many other local sports, my main love has always been baseball, and my focus here is the Phillies, but I am also part of the team covering the Philadelphia Union.